Oh, the French and British empire building expansionist were the to blame!
Sure they were, and that expansionism, include the murderous activities of the black and tans, the highland clearances, and turning early Australia, into a feared, world away, prison colony.
So, following your impressive logic, James o'Neil; people of Irish or Scottish extraction, should proceed to their ancestral homelands, with all possible haste, and proceed to massacre, torture, mutilate and rape at will, and punish all and sundry, that dare stand in their path, or simply plead for normal human compassion.
It was once our land, so we have all the rights you so generously confer on this brigade of mass murdering Jihadists?!
Do you also seriously suggest, we leave allies out, hanging to dry, as this brigade of mass murdering brigands descends on them, dispossessing them yet again, of what little the so called imperialist left.
What would you do, leave mass murdering brigands to attack all and steal what they will, like a modern day black and tans brigade, or should we intervene, if asked to, by a legitimate govt?
Personally, it's a wonder, the war rooms in the Pentagon, don't have at least one scenario, for nuking the whole dam lot, as a shortcut, that just helps them achieve their never ending evil intentions, or attempts to completely wipe each other out.
As for their oil, if it were still really important? The USA, would do as it did last time and invade, if only to secure essential, self defense energy supplies!
I still don't have a problem with the idea of eliminating this inherently evil group of mass murdering Jihadists, too extreme for even extreme Alqida, any more than I would have any compulsion, of destroying a wild rabid dog, predating my flock of relatively helpless sheep!
Rhrosty.

Jo'N: an inability to grasp even the basics of Middle Eastern history over the past 100 years is alive and well.

my reading of the ME goes quite a bit beyond the last 100 years. I know it's a bit hard for you arm chair Philosophers to grasp but they have a testable History that goes back about 6000 years (not Biblical) One thing the people in the ME are good at is squabbling over Miles of Desert. If it wasn't for the Oil it would be totally useless. The Promise Land? Yeah right!

JO'N: People's can be evil and make mistakes without the US or Europe being the cause - or is that impossible in your small ideological world?

Yep, that's why I say stuff 'em. The sooner it happens the sooner it's over. The only thing the West should have to do with it is to guard the Borders to stop anyone from expanding the area of the War outside the ME. Lock the gates & let 'em go for it. Just think all these fighters are just innocent civilians when they get killed with a gun in their hand.

JO'N: Have you applied any thought to the 2003 invasion. and a quarter of the population displaced.

The West went in at the request of the millions of Refugees who escaped (displaced) the Saddam Terror regime. I guess the West thought it was doing the right thing at the time & it thought if it stabilized the area the people would go home. Yes, we were fools.

Hullo Pete.

You actually reinforce my argument, which if you read it without automatically wanting to attach you're evidence free opinions and prejudices about my alleged views you would see.

I didn't argue that the Arabs are free of fault. What I was saying was that interference by western powers (and Sykes Picot was a French-British deal with not an American in sight) have made the situation in large areas of the Middle East immeasurably worse.

Neither did I suggest that Saddam Hussein was an angel. He did however create a secular al Qaeda free relatively advanced society that western greed, ignorance and criminality destroyed. The perpetrators of that particular criminality incidentally, remain free and Australia won't even hold an inquiry,unlike the British.

In the Iran-Iraq war you overlook the fact that Saddam was armed and supported by the US.

If you think the "western media admits its sins" then you, matey, have not been paying attention.

@JayB: re your final paragraph. If you really think that then further discussion is pointless because you are either so blinkered or irredeemably stupid that nothing will persuade you.

Yes James O'Neil, I do read a lot of history, and that is why your opinions are potty.

Every advanced civilisation has expanded it's borders into barbarian lands, which is how civilisation has spread. The reason was often self defence, as barbarians covet the material goods of settled people and covet their prosperity. On this and every other planet where civilisations exist, there comes a time when the advanced civilisations will realise that ending human barbaric degradation through imperial conquest is ultimately beneficial to the conquered peoples. As Churchill said." What more progressive enterprise can an enlightened people have, than to bring peace to warring tribes, to strike off the chains of the slave, to bring the fruits of modern medicine, and to begin in entire peoples, the first stirrings of commerce, agriculture and enterprise."

Somebody had to do it. It became the white man's burden to enlighten the world, and at least as far as th British Empire, they did a damned fine job of it. It was Britain who created Iraq because all of the petty khans and sheiks wanted all of the Middle east to become their personnel fiefdoms. The Arabs and the Iranians supported Hitler in WW 2 because he hated the Jews almost as much as they did. The reason why Britain invaded Iraq in WW2 was because the Iraqi government allowed the Luftwaffe to base bombers in Iraq to bomb the Suez canal. The reason why the British and the Russians occupied Iran is because the Iranians were trying to enter the war on Germany's side. Of course we deposed their leader and installed a puppet Shah.

Your problem, is that you think that the Arabs and Iranians, who are religious fanatics who are devotees of the most dangerous and warlike religion on this planet, think just like everybody else. And that the reason why they are failures is because the white man has "oppressed" them. That is total baloney. But you can bet that the Jihadis lap it up. They need someone to blame for the fact that their religion is a failure.

Hi James,

Why do you think that the only dynamic is Sykes-Picot, from which all subsequent evil springs ?

There are, and have been for a thousand years, a multitude of dynamics in the Middle East, nationalism versus religion, Sunni versus Shia, Arabs versus Persians and Kurds and Turks &c., traditionalism versus modernity, tribes versus state centres, tribe versus tribe - which pre-dated any western imperialism, and have post-dated it as well, to a large extent as if it hadn't occurred.

The fact remains that salafism or even more brutal interpretations of Islam, have a hold in much of the Islamic world, and currently is butchering its way through Iraq - and today Nigeria, Kenya and perhaps other parts as well. The question for you, as for all of us, is: how to combat and extinguish this ghastly movement ?

Ultimately, if we have any respect whatever for human rights and people's lives, we're all on the same side, which may also include the US, Iran, Russia, Israel, 'moderate' Muslims, Left and Right.

ISIS - can you get this through your head ? - is an extreme Rightist movement, ultra-traditionalist and fascist. It is only incidentally anti-US, in that it opposes everything the modern world stands for. It explicitly flouts any Geneva Conventions - or are they too bourgeois for you ?

This is a fascist movement of the modern world but one which - I suppose, don't they all ? - has its roots in a pre-modern, reactionary way of thinking, way of life, ideology.

If you want to apologise for it, don't ever again call yourself 'Left'.

Joe